{"id":"NA-S1952-006","label":"Cupeño assembly-signal bullroarer","people_or_site":"Cupeno","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"California","macroregion":"North America","local_name":"aīil","source_term":"bullroarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"","function_summary":"Whirled by the two red-and-black-painted paha at the Whirling Dance while boys and girls danced in the enclosure; ceremonial use only, to assemble people.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"strong1929aboriginal","source_type":"primary_ethnography","source_url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82838","page_or_plate":"Strong 1929, printed p. 258; Drucker 1937, items 924/926, printed p. 25","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Cupa / Warner's Hot Springs homeland anchor; Drucker's informants gave their list at Pala reservation after the 1903 removal","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"The Cupeño Whirling Dance, for boys and girls of sixteen to twenty, reached its pitch with a shout. Inside the dance house one paha cried \"hou-ou-ou!\" and kicked the wall three times; the paha outside answered in kind, and the first rushed out to fall prone in the center of the dance enclosure. Then both pahas — painted red and black — whirled bullroarers, aīil, while a dancer in the eagle-feather skirt and a headdress of eagle down circled the enclosure, and the boys and girls danced one at a time, whirling and squatting until exhausted. The Cupeño themselves said the dance had come to them from the Luiseño.","pull_quote":"Outside the circle were the bulk of the guests, all slowly dancing clockwise; inside the circle were the singers, and before them were the two red and black painted pahas, swinging bull roarers.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Strong 1929, Aboriginal Society in Southern California, p. 258","term_gloss":"aīil = the bullroarers whirled by the two paha at the Cupeño Whirling Dance (Strong 1929:258)","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":false,"flags":["initiation"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"W. D. Strong, Aboriginal Society in Southern California, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 26 (1929), p. 258; P. Drucker, 'Culture Element Distributions: V, Southern California,' Anthropological Records 1:1 (1937), p. 25","url":"https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82838","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013023438/https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/82838"}],"source_citations":"W. D. Strong, Aboriginal Society in Southern California, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 26 (1929), p. 258; P. Drucker, 'Culture Element Distributions: V, Southern California,' Anthropological Records 1:1 (1937), p. 25","source_display":"W. D. Strong, Aboriginal Society in Southern California, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 26 (1929), p. 258; P. Drucker, 'Culture Element Distributions: V, Southern California,' Anthropological Records 1:1 (1937), p. 25","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"Whirled by the two red-and-black-painted paha at the Whirling Dance while boys and girls danced in the enclosure; ceremonial use only, to assemble people.","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"cupeno","display_name":"Cupeño assembly-signal bullroarer","image":{"full":"assets/objects/expansion_2026_07/NA-S1952-010_wereldmuseum_rv362-38.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/expansion_2026_07/thumbs/NA-S1952-010_wereldmuseum_rv362-38_thumb.jpg","alt":"Tohono O’odham Wihoewiketeke with a painted blade, long fibre cord, and wooden whirling handle.","credit":"Wereldmuseum / NMVW (RV-362-38)","license":"CC BY-SA 4.0","source_page":"https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/653071","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Tohono O’odham Wihoewiketeke with painted blade, cord, and whirling handle.","pool_id":"auto-expansion_2026_07--NA-S1952-010_wereldmuseum_rv362-38"},"slug":"na-s1952-006-cupeno"}